David Gerrold: The Flying Sorcerers

Dedicated to the men of NASA;

We understand their problems

I was awakened by Pilg the Crier pounding excitedly on the wall of my nest and crying, “Lant! Lant! It’s happened! Come quickly!

I stuck my head out. “What’s happened?”

“The disaster! The disaster!” Pilg was jumping up and down in excitement. “I told you it would happen.”

I pulled my head in and dressed. Pilg’s joy was a frightening thing. I felt my fur rising, fluffing out in fear as I wondered…

Pilg the Crier had been predicting disaster for weeks — as was his habit. He predicted his disasters twice a year, at the times of the equinox. The fact that we were leaving the influence of one sun and entering that of the other would make the local spells completely unstable. As we approached conjunction — the time when the blue sun would cross the face of the red — Pilg had increased the intensity of his warnings. This was disaster weather: something dire would certainly happen.

Usually it did, of course. Afterward — and after we of the village had somehow picked up the pieces — Pilg would shake his heavy head and moan, “Wait until next year. Wait. It’ll be even worse.”

Sometimes we joked about it, predicting the end of the world if Pilg’s “next year ever arrived…”

I lowered the ladder and joined Pilg on the ground. “What’s the trouble?”

“Oh, I warned you, Lant. I warned you. Now maybe you’ll believe me. I warned you though — you can’t say I didn’t warn you. The omens were there, written across the sky. What more proof did you need?”

He meant the moons. They were starting to pile up on one side of the sky. Shoogar the Magician had predicted that we were due for a time of total darkness soon — perhaps even tonight — and Pilg had seized on this as just one more omen of disaster.

As we hurried through the village I tried to get Pilg to tell me what had happened. Had the river changed its course? Had someone’s nest fallen from its tree? Had the flocks all died mysteriously? But Pilg was so excited at having finally been proven correct that he himself was not sure what exactly had happened.

One of the hill shepherds, it seemed, had come running into town, panic-stricken and shouting something about a new magician. By the time I got this information out of Pilg, we were already at the village clearing where the frightened shepherd was leaning against one of the great housetrees, gasping out his story to a nervous group of men. They pressed in close to him, badgering him with questions. Even the women had paused in their work, and hanging back at a respectful distance, listened fearfully to the shepherd’s words.

“A new magician,” he gasped. “A red one! I saw him!” Someone handed him a skin; he sucked the Quaff from it noisily, then panted, “Near the cairn of the wind-god. He was throwing red fire across the mountains.”

“Red fire. Red fire.”

The villagemen murmured excitedly among themselves. “If he throws red fire, he must be a red magician.” Almost immediately, I heard the word “duel”. The women must have heard it too, for they gasped and shrank back from the milling group of men.

I pushed my way through to the center of the crowd. “Ah, Lant,” said one of the men. “Have you heard? There’s going to be a duel.”

“Is there?” I demanded. “Have you seen the runes of the duel inscribed across Shoogar’s nest?”

“No, but —”

“Then how do you know there’s going to be a duel?”

“A red magician —” gasped the shepherd. “A red magician —”

“Nonsense. No red magician could have the powers you describe. Why don’t you wait until you know something definite before you start spreading silly rumors that frighten women and children?”

“You know Shoogar as well as we! As soon as he discovers there is a new magician in the district, he’ll —”

“You mean Shoogar doesn’t know yet?”

The man looked blank.

I raised my voice. “Has anyone thought to tell Shoogar ?”

Silence. No one had. My duty was clear. I must prevent Shoogar from doing something rash. I hurried through the trees toward the magician’s nest.

Shoogar’s nest was well suited for a wizard, a squat misshapen gourd hung from a forbidding black ogre of a tree well beyond the limits of the village. (The Guild of Advisors was afraid to let him move closer; he was always experimenting with new spells.)

I found Shoogar already packing his travel kit. His agitated manner told me he was worried. Then I caught a glimpse of what he was packing and I was worried. The last time he had used that ornate bone-carved tarinele was when he had hurled the curse of the itching red boils at Hamel the Failure.

I saw what he was packing in on top of the tarinele and I flinched. “I believe that’s against the Guild rules,” I said.

For a moment I thought he’d hurl a spell at me. I cringed and instinctively made a spell-cutting gesture, (forgetting for the moment that Shoogar himself had made the protective amulets I wore; he couldn’t possibly break through his own protections; at least not for a few more days — they would expire with the coming of the blue dawns).

“You!” he snapped. “What do you know of magic? You who call yourself my friend! You didn’t even have the courtesy to inform me of this intruding sorcerer !”

“I didn’t even know of him myself, until just a few moments ago. Perhaps he only arrived today.”

“Arrived today? And immediately began throwing red fire about? Without first informing himself of the local gods, tidal patterns, previous local spells and their side effects? Ridiculous! Lant, you are a fool. You are an idiot of the first circle where magic is concerned. Why do you bother me?”

“Because you are an idiot where diplomacy is concerned!” I snapped back, my fur bristling. (I am one of the few people in the village who can bristle at Shoogar and survive to tell about it.) “If I let you go charging up the mountain every time you felt you had been wronged, you’d be fighting duels as often as the blue sun rises.”

Shoogar looked at me, and I could tell from his expression that my remarks had sunk home. “Smooth your fur, Lant. I did not mean that you were a complete fool..I just meant that you are not a magician.”

“I’m glad you are aware of my skill as a diplomat..” I said, and allowed myself to relax. “Our abilities must complement each other, Shoogar. If we are to succeed in our endeavors, we must maintain a healthy respect for each other’s powers. Only thus can we protect our village.”

“You and your damned speeches, he scowled. “Someday I’m going to make your tongue swell up to the size of a sour melon — just for the sake of some peace and quiet.”

I ignored that remark. Considering the circumstances, Shoogar had a right to be testy. He closed up his travel kit, tugging angrily at the straps.

“Are you ready?” I asked, “I’ll send a message up to Orbur, telling him to ready two bicycles.”

“Presumptuous of you,” Shoogar muttered, but I knew that he was secretly grateful for the thought. Wilville and Orbur, my eldest two sons, carved the best bicycles in the district.

We found the new magician near the cairn of Musk-Watz, the Wind-god. Across a steep canyon from the cairn, there is a wide grass-covered mesa with a gentle slope to the south. The new magician had appropriated this mesa and scattered it with his devices and oddments. As we pulled our bicycles to a shuddering halt, he vas in the process of casting a spell with an unfamiliar artifact. Shoogar and I paused at a respectful distance and watched.